7 ways to get used to your new hearing aids

It’s an exciting day when your audiologist fits your new hearing aids for you… You’ll be excited to see your friends and family and visit those social settings that have perhaps been a struggle. We’ve compiled our 7 top tips to help you get used to your new hearing aids as smoothly and quickly as possible.

Slowly increase your hearing aid usage

Your audiologist will discuss your specific usage instructions with you at your fitting appointment. For a general idea, we would suggest that you start by wearing the devices once or twice a day for an hour or two. It is best to do this at home in quiet surroundings. If you have two hearing aids, you should always wear both at the same time.

As you begin to feel more comfortable wearing them, you can begin to up the time you use them, including wearing them outside. You will soon be able to wear them for the whole day. You should remove them when showering and sleeping.

The more time you wear your hearing aids, the quicker you will get used to them. As soon as they start to feel more comfortable, try and up that time usage as much as you can.

Increase your hearing aid usage slowly and steadily

Concentrate on the everyday sounds

There will be sounds around the house that you may notice more than you previously would have, such as the kettle boiling. You need to give your brain time to get used to being able to hear again. It needs to re-learn which sounds are important and which can be ignored. Whilst these household sounds may seem noisy and irritating at first, you will quickly get used to them and they will just become background noise for you again.

Wear your hearing aids while watching TV

The TV is a big part of most of our lives. We binge a brand new series or even stream our favourite podcasts using the TV. Listening to the TV while wearing your hearing aids will help you adjust to hearing different sounds. It can be interesting for you to have the TV at the volume you would have had it before your hearing aids and see if you can now turn it down. There are even specific TV streamers for hearing aids that can stream the noise of the TV directly into your ears via your hearing aids.

Add a Phonak TV Connector to your hearing aid order and stream the TV directly to your aids

Keep your conversations small to begin with

Some people report that they hear their own voice more than they’re used to when they first use hearing aids. This could be like hearing an echo or more like hearing yourself on a recorded message. This is really, really common and not something to be concerned about. We know it is strange at first and a lot of people dislike being able to hear their own voice. The more you wear your hearing aids, the more you will get used to this and it will start to feel normal.

For this reason, we would suggest keeping your conversations small as you get used to the hearing aids. Having a conversation with just one other person is ideal.

Wear your hearing aids outdoors

For the first day, or few days, we do advise you to only wear the aids inside. However, once you get used to them, you need to start wearing them out and about to get used to the noise level outside. You may find that you notice some noises more than you are used to, such as birdsong and traffic noise.

Move on to group conversations

When you feel ready, you can try to join a group conversation while wearing your aids. You will likely find that you are now able to follow the conversation easier than you could before. This should hopefully give you a real confidence boost for wearing your hearing aids out and about and in social settings.

Go and tackle some background noise!

The most difficult listening situations that you will experience are ones where the background noise is high. You will experience this in places like restaurants or on public transport. Only try your hearing aids in these settings when you feel ready to do so. The more time you have worn your hearing aids, the easier you’ll find it when you do go to a more difficult listening situation.

If you’re excited to start your new life with hearing aids, get in touch. We can book you in for a hearing consultation.